Taking it down, and putting it back up again

Wallpaper. That may be the one word that described our house when we moved it. There was wallpaper EVERYWHERE. Most of it was ugly, most of it was old, and generally there were at least 3 layers of it.

With my trusty yard sprayer, I doused the walls in the house with vinegar and hot water and then simply waited for it to start loosening up. Then scrape, scrape, scrape. The piles of wallpaper generally looked like this:

Some walls were easier than others. Most were really sucky, though. I was at my worst while I was removing wallpaper. It didn't take much skill, just a lot of patience. It always seemed like it would never end.

After all of the spraying and scraping, I thought for a bit that I would never put up wallpaper. Well...then I started looking at design magazines and fell in love with the idea of at least one wall, somewhere. After searching through samples, I found the beauty that would be in our master bedroom. I was told it was as simple as spraying a light misting of water on the back of it and then hanging it. Uh, yeah right.

Putting up the wallpaper was just about as bad and taking it down. Actually worse, because I had put money into it. After two days of cutting, measuring and attempting to be spacially-inclined, I nearly ripped my hair out.

This image is what happens when you follow the directions of the manufacturer. After this panel fell down on Sean and my head in the middle of the night, I decided to just actually use wallpaper paste. That was a good decision.

Two days of aggravation led to probably my favorite space in our new house: our master bedroom.

My iPhone does not do the colors justice, so I'll replace these photos soon with some from a better camera, but the wall color is really great (if I do say so myself). It's a color called "weimaraner" from Benjamin Moore's Aura collection. It really does look like a weimaraner with a grey-silver look to it, depending on the light. The silver and cream of the wallpaper (by Echo Designs) is a great match.

Here are a few more pics.

I love the flokati rug we got to accompany our new king-size bed (which actually is my very favorite thing about our new house - how did we ever get by in a Queen bed for so many years?).

And I love this photo of my mom when she was young, riding her horse in Colorado. She looks like a little Mexican cowgirl...so cool.

We also just installed a chandelier that I think is too low, so I'll be replacing it soon. Or should I say Sean will be replacing it soon, as he is our resident electrician?

Someday I will have an upholstered headboard and quarter rounds on the floor (we need to add them everywhere upstairs still), but for Phase One, I'm pretty happy with it! So is our kitty Baylor, who loves to snuggle up next to the window.

The worst blogger ever...

Ok, so I admit it - I'm a horrendous blogger. I think I'm better at being a "do-er" and truly just got caught up in my work and forgot to document it all as it was unfolding. Many apologies. I am happy to share it, however. Better late than never, as they say.

At the moment, "Phase One" as we like to refer to it, is complete. I nearly lost my sanity, with everyday getting up, putting on the same old paint-splattered pants and saying hello to my friends "Impervo linen white" and "Aura".

From April through June, my best friends included:

Lovely white vinegar mixed with boiling hot water made a huge mess, but made as quick of work as possible at taking down years and years worth of horrid wallpaper.

I have a new appreciation for olive oil. Yes, it is fantastic to cook with, and I am doing more cooking now that I am staying at home. However, it's also the only thing I found that actually took oil-based paint off of my hands. A key ingredient in clean up!

So, with those fond memories firmly in place, I think I can now walk you through some before and afters. We are far from done, of course. So many details, so many big projects yet to go. BUT, I am happy to say that after months of sweat and elbow grease, we are finally in a home that is starting to feel like ours.